Wizards of the Coast

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© William Yuan 2005

  I've included this guide to be of assistance to both players and collectors:

Mint (MT) (100%)

  A card in this condition is not easy to find. Often near mint cards are mistakenly called mint. A mint card has no visible defects of any kind. This includes printed defects, including proper picture alignment. (Ed: and smells perfect! :-))

Near Mint (NM) (99%)

  A card in this condition is similar to a mint card except there may be one or two minor flaws such as a small edge ding only noticeable when inspected very closely. The flaws can not take away from the general appearance of the card. This condition represents how most cards appear from a newly opened pack.

Fine (FN) (90%)

  In this condition a card will show some wear around the edges from play or have several small dings. The edges may also have a small amount of grayness from handling. The general appearance is diminished only a little from the slight wear. This is normally the lowest grade a collector will accept for his/her collection and then only until one in better condition is acquired.

Good (GD) (75%)

  A card in this condition is best for players. Cards in this grade are usually used to trade to other players to play with. A card in this condition will have many defects, including printing errors, ink smears, scratches and slight swelling. The corners may have slight bends and the edges show definite wear.

  Microprose released a computer version of Magic the Gathering in 1997 (sadly out of print and quite rare!). This version allows you to build decks and play them one-on-one against the computer or another person over the internet. You can also go adventuring in the world of Shandalar where you battle evil wizards and their minions whilst constructing your uber decks with cards acquired from duels or buying and selling.

There is a combined total of over 500 cards in the Basic set plus the 2 expansions (Spells of the Ancients and Duels of the Planeswalkers).

The DoP expansion contains the basic set so you only need to buy DoP + SoA to have all the cards available in the computer version. The SoA expansion adds a small number of cards from the Dark expansion e.g. Barl's Cage.

  In a word, the game is GREAT: the AI is generally very good and there are very few bugs in the game (nothing serious, make sure you get the patches from my link below). If you ever wanted to know what it's like to build & use a deck with 4 Black Lotuses, well here's your chance!

Here's an example of the final battle with Arkazon and the deck I eventually built.

Here's a list of magic bugs and quirks that my friends and I have found so far...

There is a brand new patch for Windows XP users which fixes speed issues (Shandalar too fast) and other bugs: Manalink 1.32 (2.6M ZIP).

You can download earlier patches from here includes Manalink 1.32 patch.

Old patches for the computer version of Magic are also available here as a jumbo patch (12.2M TAR).

Recommended order of installation under Windows XP:
Duels of the Planeswalkers (base CD is also required for verification)
Spells of the Ancients (base CD is also required for verification)
Manalink 1.32

Here are some of my new deck combinations:

Here are some older deck combinations from 1995:

Deck Contributions:

Set your own Collection directory up via the Edit -> Preferences menu.